The International Ice Charting Working Group predicts more marine transportation in the Arctic as sea ice continues to diminish and warns of "significant hazards to navigation," according to a statement released yesterday.

The ozone hole over Antarctica has shrunk 30 percent as compared to last year's record size. According to measurements made by ESAâ€™s Envisat satellite, this yearâ€™s ozone loss peaked at 27.7 million tonnes, compared to the 2006 record ozone loss of 40 million tonnes.

Hot spots across Southeastern Europe from 21 to 26 August have been detected with instruments aboard ESA satellites, which have been continuously surveying fires burning across the Earthâ€™s surface for a decade.

Two Belgian explorers currently nearing the end of a staggering 2,000 km trek across the Arctic Ocean were recently guided through hazardous conditions using observations from Envisat, as sea ice in the Lincoln Sea began to break up unexpectedly.

Within the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security (GMES) framework, sustainable management of forests is recognised as an important challenge - one objective that will be addressed with the planned Sentinel-2 mission.

A pivoted catch designed to fall into a notch on a ratchet wheel so as to allow movement in only one direction (e.g. on a windlass or in a clock mechanism), or alternatively to move the wheel in one direction.